DIY Happy Eyes Herbal Eye Mask

Today’s recipe is a guest recipe by Elham Eghbali. Elham is a cosmetic chemist and founder of Polymorphy consulting and SkinChakra. She is an artisan soap manufacturer, a supplier of cosmetic ingredients, an industry consultant and formulator and a tutor for almost 20 years. She runs workshops and seminars in her small cosmetics laboratory in Bavaria, Germany and elsewhere in the world for a broad range of participants from industry formulators to DIY laywomen. Visit her blog at: http://skinchakra.eu/blog/ or follow Elham on Facebook at www.facebook.com/skinchakra

This is a very simple but effective eye mask/eye wash based on three wonderful herbs.

It calms your eyes after a long office day in front of the computer or after a long sleepless night and reduces dark rings around the eyes and the under eyes puffiness. It is an immediate remedy after you’ve worked in a dusty room or after your eyes were sensitized by some environmental stimuli. You can even pamper and relax your eyes with this mask as you apply your facial mask, close the eyes, relax and enjoy the soothing and healing power of these herbs.

In this mask, I’ve combined three amazing herbs: eyebright, calendula and sweet fennel. You can apply them fresh or dried (in this tutorial I’ve applied dried and crushed herbs).

About the herbs:

Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis):

Althought eyebright has many applications as a traditional medicinal herb and is applied both internally and externally (skin care, bronchitis, detoxification, kidney and lungs, etc), it is most widely applied as an ophthalmic herb to calm and rinse the eyes.

It has always been applied as a first aid remedy to rinse the eyes and relieve the eyes from environmental stimuli (conjunctivitis for example). In addition to cleansing, disinfecting and being anti-inflammatory, eyebright reduces swelling and puffiness under eyes as well.

Calendula (Calendula officinalis)

Calendula is certainly one of the most effective anti-inflammatory herbs and you know it from other DIY Beauty Diva recipes. Besides being anti-inflammatory and calming, it is an effective antibacterial herb.

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

Most of you know fennel as a carminative and stomachic remedy and as an expectorant, but fennel, besides all those properties is a diuretic herb and reduces under eyes puffiness.

You can prepare and apply this mask in less that 10 minutes. Since the mask is not preserved, do promise me to prepare it right before application and do discard the residues, do not keep them for another application.

Since the mask is going to be applied over your eyes, hygienic meticulousness is extremely important. Purchase the herbs by a serious herbalist, use clean glassware (rinse them with boiling water before you start) and be sure to have washed your hands before preparation and before you apply the mask.

Ingredients

Nutrition Info

Instructions

Add boiling water (about 20 ml) to a mixture of calendula, eyebright and fennel in a glass beaker or a bowl.

Leave the water to cool down (about 15 minutes)

Strain the water through a tea filter. (Since you're going to apply the mask over your eyes it's very important to apply a very fine filter, a stainless sieve or decantation wouldn't work in this case)

Put the mask (cover your beaker or bowl) for a few minutes in the fridge

Wet two pieces of cotton pad (or a small, clean towel) with the mask, press the pads to press the fluid out, lay down, close the eyes and cover your eyes with the moist cotton pads.

Enjoy the immediate relief and relaxation caused by the mask. Let the pads rest over your eyelids for a few minutes.